LOS ANGELES The newest kind of prestige jewelry is one of the oldest: platinum.American jewelers report that the precious, silvery-white metal is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and not just among the most precious and pricey pieces.Swings in fashion are helping promote platinum among buyers who might have bypassed it before, said Wilma Vigano, managing director of the Platinum Guild International, a Milan, Italy, association representing jewelers who work in platinum."White is coming back into favor," Vigano said.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles third baseman Manny Machado has agreed to a $519,000 contract renewal for 2014 -- slightly above this year's league minimum of $500,000 -- but the 21-year-old is somewhat disappointed with the figure. Machado will also receive an additional $100,000 bonus for winning the 2013 Platinum Glove Award as the American League's best defender. “It is disappointing, but at the end of the day, you just have to go out and play,” said Machado, who made $495,000 last season and received a $25,000 bonus for making his first All-Star team. Similarly, the Platinum Glove bonus will not be calculated as part of his 2014 base salary.

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. announced last week that Platinum Travel Inc., a Virginia-based vacation membership club, and two of its directors agreed to a settlement under which Maryland consumers who wish to do so can cancel their membership contracts and stop payment immediately.Those who bought their memberships in Maryland will also be able to receive refunds from a restitution fund into which Platinum and its directors will make payments.In settling the charges, Platinum and its directors, Alan Resnick and Cynthia Glendinning of Savannah, Ga., did not admit any wrongdoing but agreed that Platinum and its president, Mr. Resnick, will no longer do business in Maryland.

In conducting the Orioles' search for a new bullpen coach, manager Buck Showalter made it clear that new pitching coach Dave Wallace would play a big role in making the hire. Showalter said he saw the bullpen coach as an assistant pitching coach, and that ultimately, he wanted Wallace to make the final call on the hire. In hiring Atlanta Braves special assistant Dom Chiti, who will likely be announced early next week, the Orioles brought in a knowledgeable baseball man with whom both Showalter and Wallace are familiar.

MBNA America Bank yesterday introduced a premium credit card with a limit that can give consumers who qualify enough cash to put a hefty down payment on a house.The nation's second-largest bank card issuer behind Citibank is offering the no-fee MBNA Platinum Plus Visa or MasterCard, which has a credit limit of up to $100,000.The new card should be in consumers' hands within four to six weeks, said Peter Osborne, a spokesman for the Wilmington, Del.-based company."We are constantly surveying our customers and this is something they told us they wanted," he said.

When Wal-Mart planners decided to move up Interstate 81 with new stores in West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, they probably felt most at home in Hagerstown.CSX railroad had the land, and the cityand county were offering a 90 percent break on property taxes for five years.And, unlike the land in Ellicott City where Wal-Mart hopes to build a department store and Sam's Club warehouse, it was already zoned for commercial use. No hassles with county planners, no haggling overroad improvements, no nine nights of Zoning Board hearings with a crowd of angry residents.

When Apple opened its online iTunes Music Store last month with 200,000 digital album tracks for sale at 99 cents each, the company said it expected to sell a million songs in its first month. Instead, customers downloaded a million tunes in the first week. That's an astounding figure, considering that Macs with the latest version of Apple's operating system - the only computers that can access the store - account for less than 1 percent of the nation's PCs. If I owned stock in a record company, I'd look at those numbers and wonder why the bozos at the top have spent so much energy over the past three years fighting online music instead of jumping in to sell it in a format that millions prefer.

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,SUN TELEVISION CRITIC | May 15, 1999

"Double Platinum" is an urban fairy tale.Once upon a time in a poor part of an old city in the South, a young singer (Diana Ross) abandoned her husband and baby. This was hard, but the singer had to "follow her dream."She went to the big, magical city of New York and, sure enough, she became a star. In fact, she's now the queen of all divas, bigger even than Whitney Houston.But she also found it "lonely at the top" and now, 18 years later, returns to find the daughter she left behind (Brandy)

Tiny platinum coils inserted into ruptured brain aneurysms are more effective in many cases than surgery in preventing disability and death, according to a study published today. Doctors said yesterday that the coils offer an exciting therapy for aneurysms, which kill more than 20,000 people annually in the United States alone. They can be inserted without cutting into brain tissue and subjecting patients to quite as much risk. "This is really a profound change in neurosurgery," said Dr. Kieran Murphy, an interventional radiologist who treated patients in the study at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Orioles third baseman Manny Machado won the third annual Rawlings Platinum Glove Award for the American League, given to the league's best overall defensive player and chosen from among this season's nine AL Gold Glove winners. Machado, 21, received the award during the annual Gold Glove Awards ceremony in New York City on Friday night. The award was decided by a combination of an online fan vote and a new sabermetic measure that was also used for the first time in deciding the Gold Glove winners.

Home style trends follow fashion. Similarly, the metallic finishes of hardware, lighting, plumbing fixtures and some furniture follow trends in jewelry. After decades of gold jewelry, white gold, silver and platinum eventually took over as the dominant materials. Now, that silver look is starting to skew cold, and warm golds are returning at the high end. Where jewelry goes, the kitchen and bath will soon follow, according to industry professionals who often refer to hardware as jewelry for the home.

Rihanna might have kicked off her new tour in Baltimore first, but when Sade does it Thursday, it'll be a more momentous occasion in several ways. The singer is notoriously reclusive. Between her 2000 album, "Lovers Rock," and her latest, "Soldier of Love," which was released last year, she's been off the grid. This tour will be her first in nearly a decade. In addition to the tour and the new album, a new greatest-hits package was also released this year that includes three tracks never released before.

The British rock trio Keane performed and recorded in obscurity for years, but as soon as they released their debut album, "Hopes and Fears," they were stars. Based on songs like "Somewhere Only We Know" and "Everybody's Changing," some rock critics ranked Keane right up there with the Beatles and Oasis. Keane doesn't have a guitarist, which sets the trio apart from most mainstream rock bands. Instead, Tim Rice-Oxley's piano work and singer Tom Chaplin's soft, aching voice anchor most of Keane's music.

Jennifer Hudson looked radiant but guarded sitting across from Oprah Winfrey, perhaps the only other TV personality besides Barbara Walters who's "warm" enough to get celebrities to open up. The Academy Award-winning performer had just returned to the spotlight after the tragic October murders of her mother, brother and nephew in Hudson's old south side Chicago neighborhood. Though Winfrey made no direct reference to the killings, she concluded her rather vapid interview by pointedly asking Hudson how she was doing.

Ne-Yo looked backward as he moved forward on his most recent album, Year of the Gentleman. Considering the bleak state of mainstream urban music these days, where lyrical chivalry seems to have gone the way of the eight-track, the R&B-pop star wanted to bring romance back. He wanted to croon openhearted tunes of fidelity and down-on-your-knees songs of vulnerability. He also wanted to look natty while doing it. "There were a couple of statements I wanted to make with this record," says Ne-Yo, who headlines the Lyric Opera House tonight.

You expected to hear more from Tony Rich. In 1995, he broke onto the pop scene with thoughtful, nothing-to-hide "acoustic soul." (After overhearing the singer-musician describe his music that way in an interview, India.Arie, a friend of Rich's, used the phrase for the title of her 2001 platinum debut.) Seven years ago, Rich's first album, Words, sold more than a million copies, spurred by the monster hit "Nobody Knows." Critics loved him; he won a Grammy. And his back-to-basics, lyrically refined music presaged the "neo-soul" movement that flowered in the years after Words rocketed up the charts.

So I'm checking out the Web site for the legendary rock group Kiss when I stumble across a ticket offer for shows on the current tour. I already had planned to buy tickets to this past Thursday night's Kiss/Aerosmith double bill at MCI Center and - being a huge Kiss fan - wanted for one time in my life to get really good seats. The Kiss Web site offered to make it easy for me. If I signed up for the "Kiss Platinum Package," I would be guaranteed a seat within the first five rows, get to meet the guys and have a photo taken with them, painted faces, 7-inch platform boots and all. A T-shirt, autographed tour book, set of guitar picks and a $50 coupon for Kiss' online store completed the package.

Pussycat Dolls Doll Domination cds Like the Mary Jane Girls before them, the Pussycat Dolls are essentially pinups fronting as a singing group. The quintet scored a huge hit three years ago with the strip club-friendly "Don't Cha," a catchy, teasing single that pushed sales of its debut, PCD, to platinum. But still, nobody in the group stood out. Despite the success of "Don't Cha," the Pussycat Dolls, which started as a burlesque dance troupe after all, remained faceless. Even solo attempts made by the group's only vocalist, Nicole Scherzinger, went splat.

It was one of the first questions fans started asking after Michael Phelps achieved the improbable feat of winning eight gold medals in one Olympics: What will he be worth? Companies are already lining up to hand Phelps millions of dollars to associate himself with their products. He could soon be the face of a revamped and expanded swimming headquarters in North Baltimore. Some have even suggested that Hollywood snap him up to star as an aquatic superhero. Phelps has secured his status as the star of these Olympics, but he has gone beyond that, said Bob Dorfman, who studies the marketing potential of Olympians for Baker Street Partners of San Francisco.